


What Does A Pipe Dream Look Like?

by alex_wh0



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Exy (All For The Game), Banter, Is it a front? who knows, M/M, Neil owns a record store, Pianist!Andrew, introspective!Andrew, sassy!Neil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21922975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_wh0/pseuds/alex_wh0
Summary: Pianist Andrew stumbles upon a record store owned by a blue-eyed, auburn-hair man. Featuring pianist!Andrew, sassy!Neil, a pissed off Kevin Day and a worried Nicky. Don't worry, this is fluff with a side of introspection from Andrew.(He is hit by the feels, let him be.)(Also, barely any mention of piano music cuz guys come on I had to google how many keys a piano has.)
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 16
Kudos: 222





	What Does A Pipe Dream Look Like?

**7:45pm**

Andrew was lost. He took a sharp left, tires squealing as he navigated the car around a bend. Another dark lane, as dusty as the one before it. Did this city not believe in streetlights, he idly wondered as he manoeuvred the beat up rental around a pothole.

His hands itched for his Maserati, his fingers itched for a cigarette, but most of all, he itched to be somewhere, anywhere other than the dark, grey depths of a city he did not quite know how to navigate.

He cursed Kevin, cursed Nicky, and cursed their infernal decision to schedule a show in London. _But it’s London, Andrew,_ Nicky had whined. Dammit.

After another brash turn, Andrew slammed the brakes in front of a slightly rundown storefront lit up in neon pink. Like a bullet to the eye, it sent shooting pains straight to his brain. Andrew got out and squinted at the island of light that had sprung up like an oasis in the middle of nowhere, calling out to him like a siren.

“The Record Store,” Andrew let out a snort. “How original,” he muttered, opening the door. A bell jingled above his head ( _How quaint._ Another snort), and he found himself looking at a pair of very startled, very blue eyes. _Did they even make blue like that? Who’s they? Idiot._

Blue Eyes had a head of copper curls that reached his shoulders, a face that bore a variety of scars, and clothes that Andrew was sure came out his grandmother’s closet. “Hey the 70s called. They want the bellbottoms back,” he said, and then mentally kicked himself.

Blue (narrowed) Eyes scowled back. “How original.”

“Funny. I was going to say the same thing about your store’s name,” Andrew sniped back.

Blue Eyes tossed Andrew a bored glance before moving behind the counter. “Do you need something or are you here to just browse?”

Andrew looked around at the vinyl records stacked high on rickety shelves and sighed. He didn’t have the time to breathe, let alone browse. “I am lost, actually. I need directions to this place called Pepper Café?” Blue Eyes just glowered at him, so he grabbed the record nearest to him and went over to the counter. “And um I want to buy this too.”

Blue raised a single unimpressed eyebrow. _Jeez, why was that so hot? “_ Do you even own a record player? And do you even know who Creedence Clearwater Revival are,” he asked, sparing the record a brief glance. “Of course I do,” Andrew huffed.

“Yeah? Name one song,” said Blue, and then proceeded to _laugh_ at Andrew’s nonplussed reaction.

“Kidding. I’ll ring this up. Unless you want the directions only, which is fine too,” he said, scrabbling around for a pen.

“No, I want the record,” Andrew said. He wanted some kind of tangible proof that this wasn’t a fever dream he had thought up. His mind played tricks and the auburn-haired, blue-eyed man dressed in a shimmery top and denim bellbottoms looked like a pipe dream he couldn’t ever reach. _Yeah, shut up, Andrew._

“What’s your name?” Andrew stilled. The words had slipped out of him before his brain could process its consequences.

Blue Eyes looked up, startled, and said, “Neil,” and added as if it were an afterthought, “what’s yours?”

_Oh._ Andrew stilled again. It was such a simple thing to ask and yet he felt the room tilting. “Andrew,” he answered, quietly, like it was a prayer, a long-kept secret that was at long last given willingly, voluntarily.

Blue- no, _Neil_ \- hummed in response, tore off the bill and handed over the record to Andrew. “Why are you going to Pepper Café anyway? There’s some terrible new pianist playing there today,” Neil said dismissively.

Andrew shot him an amused glance. “And what’s terrible about that,” he asked. Neil frowned, “I don’t trust people who are aggressively promoted by their agencies. Sounds a lot like overcompensating for a lack of talent, I feel.”

_Fucking Kevin and his campaigns._

“As much as I’d like to hear you rant,” Andrew cut him off, “I’d like to be on my way. So could you tell me how to get there or should I call a rescue team?” Neil scowled for a second. “Fine. I can show you where the blasted café is. I live in its vicinity, so could you drop me off there?”

Andrew was taken aback for a second before he nodded. He watched Neil as he locked the cash register and the back room, and listened to him speak rapidly on the phone to someone as he downed the shutter and shut off the neon pink lights. They grey came rushing back and Andrew found himself looking for blue amid the gloom.

**8:15pm**

Said blue eyes were now eyeing Andrew’s rental car with a healthy amount of trepidation. “Um, WHAT are you driving,” he asked, gingerly poking at the door, as though that would give him answers.

“A car that is going to drop your bellbottomed ass home,” Andrew snarked back. He was running out of time, and Kevin was probably throwing a fit somewhere, while Nicky looked on, wringing his hands in worry, wondering where the hell Andrew was. But he couldn’t bring himself to care. Part of him still thought the past half hour was an elaborate hallucination that his anxious brain decided to cook up and that he was going to wake up in his hotel room with its too-clean sheets and sanitised coffee.

“Hey, shut up about my wardrobe, you’re the poster boy for basic right now,” Neil snapped and Andrew looked at his clothes. Black jeans, black t-shirt, black combat boots, black armbands with a single orange stripe running down their lengths. “Black’s classic,” he said, and got into the car. He caught Neil stifling a grin as he got in next to him.

_Andrew was so lost._

**8:25pm**

“Take the next right turn. The hell did no one teach you how to drive, Andrew?” Neil said, clutching the dashboard as Andrew took another sharp turn, heart rate suddenly climbing as he heard his name roll off Neil’s tongue like syrup.

“Did no one tell you not to get into strangers’ cars, Neil?” Andrew gritted out. He caught the knife-edge of Neil’s smile, and a shadow of sadness that flitted past his features as quickly as they had come. “Oh, yes, all my life,” Neil said, absently tracing a circular scar on his left cheek. _Interesting._

With every passing mile beneath the car’s wheels, Neil seemed to get more real, his presence solidifying in the passenger seat of the dusty rental car. _Shit, he is not a pipe dream is he._

“There. It’s the white building with the circular patio. Wait a minute-” Neil trailed off as the building came into view. Andrew stared at a life-size poster of himself swinging slightly in the evening air. He looked austere, respectable and severe in the photo, his eyes blank, face devoid of emotion – the Andrew that Kevin, Nicky and Aaron knew. The version Bee knew to be a façade; the version Neil hadn’t seen in the past 45 minutes. He looked different, he looked lost. _He was lost._

“Um do you have a twin by any chance,” Neil asked, fidgeting with the seatbelt. “Yes,” Andrew replied, taking in a deep breath. “He is a doctor in a Chicago. He’s the smarter one, I guess,” he said, turning to look at Neil, who was still fixated on the poster. “No overcompensating for a lack of natural talent there,” he added with a wry smile. Neil looked like he was about to apologise, but changed his mind at the last minute, and opened the door.

“Good luck, Andrew. I’ll see you around,” Neil nodded at him once and left. Andrew, for some reason, felt bereft. He felt lost. _Lost._

**8:40pm**

“Do you even know how late you are?” Kevin Day was apoplectic with rage and even Nicky couldn’t save him this time.

“Where the hell were you, Andrew? Your phone was fucking switched off. Do you know how worried we were? The audience is getting antsy…”

“Yeah, we were about to send out people to look for you. Can you not do this again?”

Andrew tuned Kevin and Nicky out as he got into a charcoal black suit. He chose a pink tie instead of the silver grey Kevin had laid out, and walked on to the stage. His vision narrowed to 88 neatly alternating keys in black and white – much like how he viewed the world, with a sense of studied disconnect.

If that night, he played like the music was poetry thrumming in his veins, burning through his blood like cigarette smoke on a cold winter night, then nobody had to know _why_.

**10:42pm**

“You played like it actually meant something! If you only applied-“

“Shut up, Kevin.” Andrew slammed the door to the changing room. His fingers itched for a cigarette. His brain was looking up the definition of pipe dream, and he wanted to sleep till he learned to forget.

As he pulled on his jacket, he found a piece of paper. _“Brahms? That was surprising. Call me.”_

If that night, Andrew Minyard flashed a smile – sharp as a knife-edge, then no one had to know.

**01:24am**

A: Is pick pocketing among your many skills?

N: You could say

N: Nice tie, btw

A: Shut up

A: You’re buying me ice cream tomorrow.

N: Am I now?

A: French vanilla with Belgian chocolate sauce. 2pm. Don’t be late.

N: Vanilla? How basic.

A: It’s a classic.

A: You’re basic. Your face is basic. Your existence is basic.

N: How original

If that night, Andrew smiled twice at his phone, then no one had to know.

Andrew was lost, but now he knew what a tangible pipe dream looked like.

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all are precious thank you for reading this. Hope you liked it! Come say hi to me on [Tumblr](https://alex-wh0.tumblr.com/) and on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/alex_wh0). Have a nice day, okay?


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